Jerry Zolten

Jerry Zolten

Penn State professor and American roots music historian Jerry Zolten has spent decades hunting for old records. Now a rare Zolten recording has been unearthed.

“Chimpin’ the Blues,” a 60-minute program co-hosted by Zolten, aired a handful of times on public radio in 2003 and will be released Nov. 26 by a New York-based independent label. The WPSU-produced recording is one decade old but the tunes of the 1920s and ’30s are timeless, according to the associate professor of communications arts and sciences, and American studies at Penn State Altoona.

People have applied a host of labels to Jerry Zolten over the years. The Penn State Altoona associate professor has been variously described as a musician, record producer, collector, musicologist, author, stand-up comedian, even dog owner. But the description he likes best? Educator. One of Zolten's latest research projects focuses on the emergence in the early 1920s of the Paramount record label (no association with the Hollywood film studio), which offered a national platform to African American artists, who went on to have important but largely unexplored influences on the mainstream music of subsequent generations.

Research Unplugged, the speaker series that brings Penn State researchers into the community for lively public discussions, this week will feature Jerry Zolten, Penn State Altoona professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and American Studies. Zolten will speak from noon to 1 p.m. at the Penn State Downtown Theatre Center on Allen Street in State College, Pa. The program is free an open to the public.

Jerry Zolten, associate professor of communications at Penn State Altoona, received quite a surprise when he discovered that he was drawn in some panels of the late Harvey Pekar's newest book, "Huntingdon, West Virginia 'On the Fly'". Zolten was friends with Pekar, an American underground comic book writer, for about six years before Pekar died, even working together on a one-hour radio program for Penn State Public Broadcasting called "Boppin' With Pekar."

Jerry Zolten, associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State Altoona, will be among the guests at a May 13 opening party for a new exhibit at the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Jerry Zolten, associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State Altoona, recently was invited to serve on the inaugural award selection jury for the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize. The award is sponsored by the Penn State University Libraries and administered by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book. It honors Ward's influence in the development of the graphic novel. The first award recipient will be announced in the spring.

Chuck Berry, James Brown, Michael Jackson. These artists justly are credited for shaping today's music industry. They are heralded for inspiring countless musicians over several decades, but how did Berry, Brown and Jackson create their sound? Who were their influences and why weren't those influences mainstream musicians as well?

George Carlin once said, "I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."

Until his death in June, the groundbreaking stand-up comic did just that. In 1972, Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" routine provoked a public debate about freedom of expression that eventually resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court obscenity case and helped define the limits of acceptable free speech in television and radio broadcasts.

Rock 'n' roll hit the scene in 1956 like a burst out of the blue—or, more accurately "a burst out of the blues," explained Jerry Zolten to an electrified audience at last Wednesday's Research Unplugged event at the State College Downtown Theatre.

Record producer and Penn State professor Jerry Zolten worked with the Fairfield Four's Isaac "Dickie" Freeman on Beautiful Stars, Freeman's first solo album, from inspiration to final cut. Zolten answers some questions about the creative process.